Watcher
History Generally, Garou try to compose themselves with dignity. Some days that just doesn’t work right. Blue-River-Rising, an Uktena Theurge, was mourning the loss of a dear friend. He had long travelled with Relic-of-Memory, a Philodox of his tribe and an enthusiastic treasure hunter. Though the two were never formally a pack, they were a great pair who worked well together and enjoyed the mutual company and support. She had been drowned in a tragic encounter with a fomor who had been hiding in the Columbia River outside of Yakima, Washington. It was just one of those fights that should have been easy but was fraught with bad luck. He'd spent entirely too long drinking, both while seeing to her burial rite and after at a local bar named Devlin’s Dive. When he was cut off a short while after closing, Blue-River took to lupus and went out into the night fuzzy-headed and blind with grief. Come morning, he woke to the unpleasant effects of a hangover and the musky smell of coyote all over him - and the sort suggesting he did more than just cross paths with one. Realizing in shock that he’d likely mated with one, he followed the coyote’s trail. It was with trepidation that he watched the coyote female from afar and his concerns were proven true in due time when she began to show and later gave birth to a litter of coywolf pups. Seven were born alive with one stillborn. While she was out hunting, Blue-River-Rising snuck to the den at the pup’s first month and Baptised them. Of them, one the spirits took a distinct interest in and the mark of Uktena was placed. Their father left with haste, fully intending to watch over them and return in due time and to ensure his tribe knew of them. Unfortunately for him, he was a stranger to the area, a Deep South Garou himself, and made the mistake of traveling a little too close to Hanford. He went into the Umbra to travel faster but never came back out. His pups remained ignorant of their lupine heritage, growing under the care of their mother. Two pups were lost in infancy, as happens sometimes. The remaining four endured to emerge from the den. The eldest, Loud-Howler, was the boldest of the lot. She was strong and dominant, favoriting her wolf blood, and demanded the best food and warmest spot next to their mother. Her younger sister and brother, Hops-Like-Bird and Dark-Paw were energetic and playful and small like their coyote mother. The youngest, a male somewhere between wolf and coyote, was more reclusive. They called him Watcher, for his habit of watching the others or the world around him. For all that, he played like any pup and enthusiastically emulated his mother in the ways of hunting and tracking. He was the smartest of the pups, clever and able to steal food or earn the attentions of their mother. He was the best at outmaneuvering his littermates in their games of I Got The Bone or Chase. He wasn’t the strongest, often losing if it came to a physical tussle, so he just learned how best to avoid being in their way. It was unfortunate, though, that their mother’s territory was in the suburbs of Yakima. In one particular adventure, the nine month old pups were out exploring when they came face to face with a truck on the road. Dark-Paw was killed instantly. Loud-Howler escaped, while Watcher and Hops-Like-Bird were both injured in the scramble. Animal Control was called to recover the two. It was soon determined Bird was too badly injured to be returned to the wild and was sent to live in a nearby haven. Watcher wasn’t badly off but spent a few months in the center until he was old enough to be released on his own. Perhaps it was the curiosity of his coyote half, but Watcher did what he did best while he was there - watched. He observed the workers of the haven as they came and went about their business. He’d seen humans since he was a pup and so they did not scare him, though he was never full enough to wander too close and always keep cautious. What he watched most of all though were the shadows. Not the ones that the humans had, he knew those and knew they couldn’t do anything or even be caught or eaten. These were shadows that had nothing with them. No body, not even a shape, but he watched them move. Many seemed the size of animals, though they never responded when he called to them and the humans grew annoyed with his yapping. When it was determined he was able to learn and re-adapt to life on his own, he was fitted with a radio collar and ear tag and returned back to wild. Almost immediately he gravitated back towards the terrain he’d long known since birth. Watcher knew deep suburbia was a place of easy meals and plenty of shelter so that is where he began establishing a territory of his own. Garbage wasn’t delicious but it was plentiful and far easier than hunting. He learned that the humans disliked it if he snuck into their back yards to tease their pets or raided the hanging boxes that birds liked to nest in. He learned to move by night when the humans were asleep, doing his hunting and scrounging under cover of dark. He would catch the scent of his mother from time to time but he was largely independent and so avoided her territory. As he neared his second year, Watcher began to feel a deep wanderlust. He was growing anxious to leave the lands he’d known since birth and explore for more fruitful territory and a mate of his own. So, one day he turned north and began traveling. It was about then he began to become aware of a new type oddity in his life. Like the shadows, these were something he couldn’t quite understand, but there was something more recognizable at least. They resembled humans, but were not. These ones had no smell. Often, he’d only see them out of the corner of his eye but lost them if he turned to look. None of them approached him but he could feel them watching, stalking his trail. When he came to the edge of Saint Claire, he saw more of these not-humans. He came to learn, as they grew bold and more noticeable, that there was the lingering smell of death around them. He saw some with signs of obvious injury. Some were very old. Some were young. Some tried to speak and others only watched. They did Watcher no harm, for the most part, so in time he came to accept their presence as an unusual but harmless part of his life. At first they had frightened him, as any wild creature is expected to be wary of the unknown, but as time passed and his First Change drew new fascination began to rise. Not all were friendly or even neutral. Only twice did Watcher encounter one who was aggressive. One drove him away from the burnt out shell of an ancient house whose fire he thought he felt. The other was a traveller, lurking along a stretch of the highway and seemed to have a strange habit of wanting to run in front of cars. Watcher didn't stop to figure out such behavior. He didn't stop moving until he lost the creeping sense of fog in his coat. He came to learn that many of these creatures called the local cemetery their territory and so he set up a den underneath an old maintenance shed at the edge of it - a place where people rarely came and a place where he could keep a curious eye on these not-humans. Visits to the cemetery began reporting sightings, hearing eerie howls in the night. Youngsters trying to catch ghosts caught video of eyes glowing at them from the dark and glimpses of a rabid dog stalking them, unaware it was just Watcher announcing his territory and trying to keep interlopers away. Sensing the young lupus’ changing mind as his Rage began to grow, the Uktena spirit dormant in Watcher took flight. Hopefully it would find it’s target soon, as Animal Control began preparations to investigate this wild animal lurking in the cemetery. Cubhood Watcher had been living under a shed at Saint Uriel's Cemetery. When his kinfetch departed, it alerted every Garou in the area, which had the unfortuate side effect of bringing an ugly bull-headed Spiral down on his front door. Thankfully, Brom and Reed were in the area along with Mox and the three saw the Spiral taken care of and the cub taken to Edgewood. Once there, he briefly did manage an escape when Becca, a Bone Gnawer kin, left the garage door open but Alicia was on hand to recover him and reassure the frightened cub that he wasn't in danger. She also introduced him to bacon that didn't come out of the garbage. In the end, the day wasn't a total loss. In short time, Little Silvertip came to retrieve her cub and take him up into the mountains. After a hunt he also learned the fine art of taking homid form, which he took to with surprising enthusiasm for a Lupus. He proved himself an obedient and clever student and quite dedicated to learn all he could. In short order, he was sent on his Rite Of Passage. There, he learned of Loowitlatkla and the Bridge of the Gods, the ancient tale of the woman looking over the bridge's flame, immortal and beautiful. To either side of the lands around the Columbia, two brothers competed for her love and against one another. So angered, the Great Spirit cast the brothers and Loowitlatkla and turned them into mountains - Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Watcher vowed to Loowitlatkla to remember her story and share it, and too did he promise to sing their names at the rising of the sun. He was declared by the beautiful maiden a cub no longer and returned to the sept to share what he had learned. Cliathhood progressed fairly boring. At least until Watcher, along with best friend Justin (a Gnawer Ahroun), Henry (a Child of Gaia Philodox), and Fitz (a Fianna Galliard Metis) decided it'd be a fine idea to pack together. They went seeking Lady Luck. Instead, Coyote found them and showed a particular interest in the coywolf, even going to far to call him one of Coyote's. There was a bit of hesitation, especially on the part of Henry, but ultimately the gang decided 'what the hell' and threw their lot in with the Trickster. While ferociously loyal to his pack, the Uktena soon found himself at odds. Since his cubhood, his lack of long-term exposure to his own tribe or breed had rendered him into an oddball that's rather prone to rather un-wolflike thinking and uncomfortably like the Gnawers he's practically grown up amongst. Due to that, Justin sent Watcher away from the city, insisting he go learn to 'be a good Uktena'. Dejected and feeling even more like a failure, the coywolf slunk off to Rainbow Lake and could be found lurking between there and the southern portion of Wolf Woods. The reason for the latter? He'd found himself a mate, a member of the Aqua Pack named Frost On Flowers. Current Events Things were looking rough for a time as a planned April 1st prank backfired with Ohno and Coyote dropping the wuju on the sept, insisting they all needed a collective stickectomy. It rendered those present to begin reflecting some opposing point of their personality, the idea being to explore their horizons and grow. For Watcher, it was shifting an urrah omega into a properly alpha-ish Lupus. The fourteenth of April 2016 proved a momentous day for the coywolf. Not only did he succeed in his challenge to Slug of the Bone Gnawers for Fostern but he also became a father. Four pups were born under the half moon earlier in the day, three males and one female. While all proved to be kin, Watcher was no less pleased. In early 2017, finding himself still struggling with his identity as Uktena and desperate for a deeper understanding of what it meant, Watcher elected to leave his pack and join the newly forming Guardian pack Stalwart. Appearance Lupus: It can take a minute to properly identify just what this canine is. To those in the know, though, his species isn't quite so vague. As a coywolf, Watcher physically resembles his coyote heritage more than his wolf as a whole. He's smaller and leaner than a wolf, with the longer ears and lighter build one would expect to see on a coyote. He's got a thick coat, though, and it lends him a bit of false bulk that usually makes him just look a bit shabby. His paws are also larger, ending with curving claws. His muzzle is a bit broader though not so heavy as a wolf but contains the same array of sharp teeth. Overall, he's a tawny grey-ticked coloration with a darker saddle. His undersides are lighter and he has yellow eyes. Homid: Physically, Watcher looks like a young man maybe in his late teens. He's lean and in the high five foot range. Overall he has a distinctly native american look to him, with a tanner toned skin and long hair dark enough to black save under direct sunlight where it has a faintly brown cast. His eyes have the marked epicanthic fold and look to be a dark brown in hue. There are a few features that don't entirely match, though. He's got a wider nose bridge and nostril set that might fit better on someone of african-american stock along with a faint texture to his hair that can be seen at close range. Hooks and Contacts * Got Wraith? Watcher sees dead people. Those sensitive to such things would feel the cold mist of the Shadowlands around him. Sheet Info Category:Lupus Category:Galliard Category:Uktena Category:Fostern Category:Present NPCs